Web therapy

Web Therapy is an incredibly funny and wonderfully made web series about a psychologist who does chaotic three-minute therapy sessions via webcam. It stars Lisa Kudrow, who plays the over-involved Fiona Wallace who can’t quite keep her personal issues out of the sessions.

It’s a really simple premise but is a very well observed satire on therapy and has some sublimely funny moments as Wallace tries to use the therapy sessions to justify her bad behaviour.

To be honest, the thought of Lisa Kudrow playing a psychologist kind of put me off, owing to a hang-over from Friends, but she plays quite a different character and does a fantastic job .

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Kudrow stars as Dr. Fiona Wallice, a therapist of dubious reputation. Fiona is tired of listening to her patients drone on and on about their dreams and feelings; she has reduced all of her sessions to short 3 minute web meetings. You can tell right away that Fiona is a horrible therapist and cares little for her patients. The concept for the show is fresh and original, and Kudrow portrays her character very well. What makes the show really interesting is that she is always drawn in by something that the patient has that can help her advance her career. Each episode is short (4-6 minutes long) with each client taking 3 episodes to resolve.
What I found the most amusing was the irony in Fiona’s advice which essentially consists of her saying a lot of nothing; despite this she complains when her clients do the same with their dreams or thoughts. The characters in the show are fairly well developed and the acting is solid. Season 2 is supposed to focus more on character development and Fiona’s failing marriage. There were only a few episodes that I thought fell flat, the rest were well executed.
My only real complaint with Web Therapy is its extremely poor online presence. This is very disappointing for an “award-winning show”. Clips can be found on lstudio, youtube, hulu and other media sites. Each new article about the show is posted on dozens and dozens of entertainment sites with little to no commenting. There are a couple facebook pages with links to the show. Even after emailing the production company, I was given a generic response stating the obvious: clips can be found on youtube etc. Having to search through multiple pages to find a few comments is not ideal.
Looking at another webby winner Trent Reznor (Webby artist of the year), he has an official site and interacts with his fans. There is actual discussion. Why then does Web Therapy not have an official site, or even a way to contact the producers with feedback/comments? Perhaps it’s because of Kudrow’s self-admitted fear of the internet? She certainly chose the correct medium if that’s the case. In my opinion there is really no excuse for such poor marketing; either it’s greed or laziness. The producers’ idiosyncrasies must have seeped into Fiona.